Godrej Material Handling is investing in digitization for enhancing customer experience.

We offer techno-commercially complete package driven by market requirements.

- Anil Lingayat, EVP and Business Head, Godrej Material Handling

Godrej Material Handling is India's largest manufacturer of lift trucks. The range includes electric, LPG and diesel counterbalanced forklifts up to 25 T capacity, warehouse trucks and special trucks for specific applications. The company also manufacture attachments of its own design for addressing a wide range of handling applications besides offering attachments made by international specialists in the field when the application demands. Anil Lingayat, EVP and Business Head, Godrej Material Handling shares his views on the warehousing equipment trends. Excerpts from the interview…

How do you assess the transformative trends in logistics and warehousing sector? 

The logistics and warehousing sector is focusing on the adoption of mechanisation. The supply chains supporting the essential services saw an immense spike in the first few months of the lockdown, however, they also faced severe challenges due to the lack of labour at hand. Therefore, these sectors are looking to adapt to new mechanisations to reduce their dependency on labour intensive processes.

What is your assessment on the future growth and growth drivers?

The fundamental growth drivers have been the e-commerce and modern retail sectors. They have been accelerating the development of the warehousing industry. The warehousing industry is currently transitioning from traditional to modern infrastructure, with an increased emphasis on automation and other factors such as quality consistency assurance, safety and security of goods, efficiency in operations and quicker turnarounds. Occupiers now also primarily prefer efficiently designed warehouses over cost effective warehouses. Warehouses are also opening up in strategic locations to ensure timely delivery of products to remote areas. There is still a long way to go for the warehousing industry with players ready to invest in opportunities.

What is the impact of the pandemic on the E and WHE segment?

Many companies saw volatility and uncertainty in demand and felt a liquidity crunch. To meet surges, many opted for rental equipment in the short-term because the payback cycle for investing in new equipment wasdelayed. This has driven our rentals business.

The pandemic and consequent lockdown put us to the test and we were proud to keep over 100 customer sites operational, by fully leveraging our in-house digital platform to manage the rental business.

While digital meeting tools have become commonplace, we saw this trend percolating even to the area of servicing industrial equipment. Customers are showing a preference for remote assistance over video to resolve simpler maintenance issues of their forklifts in order to avoid external personnel visits in their premises. At Godrej Material Handling we were a step ahead, by launching our product manuals on a digital platform which both our channel partners and customers could easily access. Thanks to this, we were able to provide effective remote assistance to dozens of customers during the lockdown.

Many of these new measures and ways of doing business will be retained post the pandemic and may require us to modify the current way of working, at least for the foreseeable future.

What is the perceptible shift towards cleaner and greener and smarter technology products in the warehouse equipment segment?

Godrej Material Handling, a business of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd., pioneered the production of electric forklift trucks way back in the 1960s. The current range by Godrej provides users variety in electric forklift trucks, some of which are designed to deliver speed and power comparable to diesel forklifts. These vehicles combine the quiet and clean efficiencies of electric technology with a power-packed performance, making it a machine of choice.

The recently launched 3-wheel electric forklift in its Bravo family offering three models from 1.6 to 2 tonne capacity is a classic example. With speeds up to 15kmph, a 25 percent tighter turning radius than 4-wheel models and lifting heights up to 6 metres, this compact vehicle is the perfect machine to handle goods in tight spaces and in modern warehouses. Similarly, Godrej SKUtro, first-of-its-kind mobility-cum-transport solution that was launched last year to address the problem of low productivity and fatigue in employeesis also an efficient warehousing solution.

What are the trends especially from power front?

For the users, there have been concerns mainly in the area of electric battery powered equipment to respond to their needs like enabling the forklift to run longer hours on a single battery charge, or enabling users to charge batteries at a convenient time rather than when the battery needs to be charged. With our new range of Li-ion powered trucks we have addressed this concern and will help the users in the industry to shift to a cleaner and greener future.

Brief us on the solution offered? 

The material handling industry has been seeing immense growth due to various factors including the booming e-commerce which, in turn, have fast-tracked the setting-up of new facilities entailing a growth in demand for forklifts to facilitate their operations.

Our wide range of solutions including customized service and rental offerings has always been the strength of our core offerings. As a standard practice, we understand the customer's operations / application in detail and then recommend solutions best suited to their needs. For example, if a company is setting up a warehouse, we study the racking layout, duty cycle, required throughput, type of handling and so on. Based on these parameters we may recommend either stacker, forklift, reach truck, articulated forklift, stock-picker or a combination of these products. This will be the customized technical solution. Thereafter, we offer tailor-made service packages and recommend short-term rental trucks to manage annual operational peaks. We also offer various financing options for our customers through our partners that helps address liquidity challenges, if any. In this manner, we offer techno-commercially complete packages that are driven by market requirements.

How have you been able to leverage the benefits of disruptive technologies in your product line?

As warehouse operations are growing in scale and complexity, emerging technologies like warehouse trucks for specific tasks, fork trucks integrating with warehouse management systems, etc are catching on.

IoT is fast emerging as a useful tool to monitor fleet health, provide proactive or predictive maintenance and optimize fleet size. With our in-house digital platform, we have ensured safety and well-being of our customer and their employees during the current times.

While forklifts are a necessary and vital part of any material handling operation, they also present a risk in an environment with people and other handling equipment moving around. As such safety accessories like Red and Blue Halo Lights, Camera systems, Biometric access etc are on the rise. Some of these accessories come as standard features on our trucks.

Talking about digitization, the new generation of managers and even forklift operators are more comfortable working with digital manuals, digital training programs and communication platforms. Even transactions are moving online.

All these trends are moving India's MHE industry towards a more productive, safer and digitally enabled future.

What has been the impact of the same while you designing aftermarket support systems?

Customers are showing a preference for remote assistance over video to resolve simpler maintenance issues of their forklifts in order to avoid external personnel visits in their premises during current times. We at Godrej Material Handling have been a step ahead, by launching our product manuals on a digital platform which both our channel partners and customers can easily access. Thanks to this, we were able to provide effective remote assistance to dozens of customers during the lockdown.

What are the major challenges in today's context?

Market volatility and uncertainty in demand are major challenges in today's time. To meet surges, many companies are expected to opt for rental equipment in the short-term. This will drive the rentals business across the industry.

How geared up are you to meet the challenges in the post Covid era?

Godrej Material Handling is investing in digitization for enhancing customer experience by telematics to remain connected with customers' truck. This shall enable empower our customers to manage their fleet at multiple locations with real time information of their Godrej equipment. It will facilitate our customers to enhance their productivity at a lower cost by maximizing utilization of their assets.

Godrej Material Handling plans to further empower its wide-spread dealer network through sales and service training to facilitate prompt response to customers in any part of our country.

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